Yet, in some strange way it relieved her to be angry and sore with him--to have a grievance she could avow, and on which she made it a merit to dwell.

His gentle, yet firm difference of opinion with her on the subject struck her as something new in him.

It gave her a kind of fierce pleasure to fight it.
He seemed somehow to be providing her with excuses--to be coming down to her level--to be equalling wrong with wrong.
The door handle turned.

At last! She sprang up.

But it was only William coming in with the evening post.